Exhaustion clung to the brims of Will's eyelids, his bones heavy with the day's work. After devoting the wee hours of the morning tending the garden and the afternoon keeping the shop, he managed to slip away in the twilight.
Off to gather more paint, he'd explained. What coats clung to the ceiling of the Moody's front porch had begun to chip, and they couldn't afford to leave themselves unprotected against the restless spirits traveling the corpse roads. By the time Will had made it to town, a different kind of gathering had struck his attention.
Workers clustered outside of the railway stations, voices hoarse from the afternoon's wear and tear. Will found his place among them, shouting at whoever cared to listen, shouting louder at those who refused to. It wasn't until punches were thrown and guns were drawn that he ducked and managed to clamber away from the chaos.
By the time he made his escape, the general store carried two remaining cans of haint blue. It took some haggling, but Will walked away with both tins stacked atop each other. He planned on spending the rest of the evening leaned against a street lamp with a smoke before heading back to the swamps. Once he placed the cigarette between his lips, he patted his pockets only to find his matchbox missing.
Thankfully, it wasn't long before a familiar smell caught his attention. The trail brought him to a bench. After placing the paint cans on the cobbled street, he turned to face his company, eyeing him steadily.
"Happen to have a spare match on ya?"
Birdie had heard the stranger's steady gait approach. A shiver of tension rippled through him. To look up would submit him to curiosity, and that, in turn, gave way to clumsiness. The first connection was always the most important. And the other made it with the cool abruptness of one who would be happier somewhere else.
Perfect.
Birdie's movements were slow. Staggering fatigue performed with a twist of his torso as he felt around for his matchbox. His muscles flexed and twinged with the dull ache of outlaw life as he stood, still patting. Then, the swift click of the hammer as he thumbed it back, and the wink of his pistol in the lamplight. He was aiming it subtly at Will's gut.
This was the worst part. The ambiguity of his silence coupled with the cold detachment of his gun could lead to panic, and the last thing that he wanted was for this fella to take off running. He'd get a bullet in the back and that would be the end of Birdie and Shiloh in Saint Denis.
But this one didn't seem bull-dumb. There was something sharp in his gaze that Birdie could relate to. He'd taken his own eyes to the whetstone time and time again, after all. So he pointed those eyes to the shadowy alleyway that led to the street behind the barber's, where he'd left his horse.
